Dozens of high-ranking Turkish military officers formerly posted at NATO headquarters in Brussels and SHAPE military headquarters in Mons are among more than 125,000 people President Recep Tayyip Erdogan alleges helped launch a failed coup against him in July. Erdogan calls them "terrorist soldiers." Several of these officers agreed to speak with Deutsche Welle under cover of anonymity. They want to know if any visiting dignitary is going to ask Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu for details on what's happening to them, how he'll reassure them the alliance that it can get along just fine without some of its best-trained...

<p>In the aftermath of the Raymond Davis and bin Laden affairs, General James Mattis was key in maintaining ties with top Pakistani military leadership.</p>
<p>New Delhi: The next US secretary of defence was the Obama administration's main man to keep a line open and bring ties with the top Pakistani military leadership back on an even keel in the dark days following the arrest of a CIA contractor and the killing of Osama bin Laden.</p>

I don't know whether Gen. Wesley Clark is qualified to be president, but Peter J. Boyer's profile in this week's New Yorker—which paints him as scarily unqualified—is an unfair portrait as well as a misleading, occasionally inaccurate précis of the 1999 Kosovo war and Clark's role in commanding it.Boyer relies heavily on some of Clark's fellow retired Army generals who clearly despise him. The gist of their critique, as Boyer summarizes, is that Clark, while a brilliant analyst, "had a certainty about the rightness of his views which led to conflicts with his colleagues and, sometimes, his superiors." I have...

A call earlier this week between President-elect Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May — in which they agreed on the need for more NATO member states to commit two percent of their GDP on defense spending — brought European security debate back into the limelight. Although Trump gained notoriety in Europe for his skepticism of America’s alliances, there has been a surge of high-ranking politicians and government officials on both sides of the Atlantic saying that Europe is not doing enough for its defense. Earlier British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said that Europe should “step up to the...

An American tank full of US Marines crashes through the silence of the sub-zero pine forest, far above the Arctic Circle, as unidentified drones hover overhead and yellow and green smoke fills the freezing air. The troops' target? A bunker up ahead, manned by Norwegian soldiers. Shots ring out as the Marines advance, crunching through the snow beneath gray winter skies. It's all role-play, of course -- the maneuvers are part of a training exercise, but one jarringly imbued with the new reality along NATO's northernmost border with Russia. Some 300 US Marines are due to be based in Norway...

Erdogan has already transformed Turkey into an Islamic Republic in all but name. Now he appears intent on building his own Turkish equivalent of an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, loyal to him and the ideology of his slow motion revolution.

NATO’s chief has urged alliance members to cough up the cash needed to secure the “transatlantic bond” that the US president-elect has threatened to cut, unless members contribute the required two percent of their GDP to the common “defense” goal.

As President-Elect Trump begins to form his governing team and to review the involvement of America in the world, it makes sense in the revolutionary change in American politics to look anew at almost everything. Trump has taken some hits for suggesting that our contribution to NATO has been disproportionately large. I will suggest what many of us may think but Trump may be too coy to openly state: America does not need NATO. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created at the instigation of an American superpower trying to find a means of containing global communism, led by the...

Russia will deploy two advanced missile systems to its far-west territory of Kaliningrad in a direct response to NATO expansion in eastern Europe, a pro-Kremlin Russian lawmaker said Friday. Kaliningrad is a parcel of land disconnected from the Russian mainland that sits on the coast of the Baltic sea, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania. A Russian deployment of S-400 surface-to-air missiles and nuclear-capable Iskander balistic missiles to Kaliningrad, with its proximity to NATO member states, will undoubtedly heighten concerns among leaders of the transatlantic security alliance, who were already nervous over incoming American leader Donald Trump’s commitment to their collective...

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke by phone today with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. The Secretary General congratulated the President-elect on his election victory and said that he was looking forward to working with him and his national security team. The President-elect and the Secretary General both underlined NATO's enduring importance, and discussed how NATO is adapting to the new security environment, including to counter the threat of terrorism. Secretary General Stoltenberg also thanked the President-elect for raising the issue of defense spending during the campaign, which has been a top priority for the Secretary General since his appointment in...

COPENHAGEN, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Denmark is ready to increase military and national security spending, Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said on Wednesday after a phone conversation with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. Trump criticised NATO allies during campaigning for the White House, saying they did not pay enough for their own defence and suggested the United States was paying a disproportionate amount. Denmark spends about 1.2 percent of GDP on defence. NATO has set its members a target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defence. "The government is setting the stage for increasing spending on military and national security,"...

It should not be controversial to observe that the EU is in a bit of a mess. It has been one slow-motion disaster ever since the 2008 financial crisis. That was initially because one of the pillars of European unity is the Euro currency, yet the European Union does not have the effective political integration to make a currency union work. Though Europe’s economies, for example, are more similar between themselves than the richest and the poorest states of the US, the United States has an adequate level of political and financial integration to make their monetary union work. Europe...

Denmark is ready to increase military and national security spending, Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said on Wednesday after a phone conversation with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. Trump criticised NATO allies during campaigning for the White House, saying they did not pay enough for their own defence and suggested the United States was paying a disproportionate amount. Denmark spends about 1.2 percent of GDP on defence. NATO has set its members a target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defence. "The government is setting the stage for increasing spending on military and national security," Rasmussen said in a statement...

According to a report in Deutsche Welle (DW) on Tuesday, most of the 60 Turkish diplomatic passport holders who are seeking asylum in Germany in the post coup period are military personnel who were representing Turkey at NATO. Given the fact that the military personnel at NATO have classified information regarding Turkey, which is a NATO ally, German officials are reportedly evaluating the applications with sensitivity. In an earlier report in October, German media said that 35 Turkish diplomatic passport holders had applied to Germany for political asylum. Today’s DW story gives this number as 60. However, it has emerged...

Former George W. Bush administration foreign policy hawk John Bolton says President-elect Donald Trumpâ€™s win, coupled with the recent â€śBrexitâ€ť vote, presents a unique moment for the U.S. and Britain to get together behind a push for major change in the current world order.Mr. Bolton, who is reportedly still in the running for a possible cabinet position in the Trump administration, said Washington and London have a rare chance to join forces on aggressive reforms at both the United Nations and NATO.

Since Donald Trump's election, media-fuelled panic has engulfed Europe, including over defence and security. We are told that World War III is imminent, that Trump will jump into bed with Putin and pull the US out of NATO. Such fantasies are put about by media cheerleaders for European political elites, terrified that Trump's election will inspire support for populist candidates in the forthcoming elections in Germany, the Netherlands and France. In fact, it is the EU, not Donald Trump, that threatens to undermine NATO and the security of the West. In recent days, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, his foreign...

AARGM missiles will replace the pictured HARM as a weapon of Tornado aircraft. Photo: Bundeswehr/PIZ Luftwaffe. AARGM anti-radiation missile, developed for the US Navy and for the Italian government has also been selected by the German Air Force, as a replacement of the AGM-88B HARM weapon, to become integrated with the Tornado jets in Luftwaffe in the future. As a result of the aforesaid steps, the missile will become the core armament of the NATO air forces specialized in SEAD/DEAD operations (Suppression/Destruction of Enemy Air Defences). The missiles are also being offered to Poland, as the armament for the F-16...

U.S. president-elect Donald Trump needs to clarify his views on Russia, and to understand that NATO must be treated as an alliance of shared values rather than a business, Germany's defense minister said. "What his advisors will hopefully tell him and what he needs to learn is that NATO isn't just a business. It's not a company," Ursula von der Leyen told a ZDF talk show on Thursday. "I don't know how he values NATO." During his election campaign, Trump threatened to abandon U.S. allies in Europe if they do not spend enough on defense. "You can't say 'the past...

Quadriga - Trump and Europe: Partners or Rivals? "Shock and horror in Europe: the next US president will be Donald Trump. Having criticised the EU during the campaign, he now promises good relations. But can the EU take him at his word or is the transatlantic divide set to widen?" 25:59 min VIDEO AT SITE

Nato chiefs, thrown into a panic by fears that Russian President Vladimir Putin might attack the West, are scrambling to put together a force of 300,000 troops which they can put on 'high alert'. Relations between Russia and the West have plunged in the last year, with Moscow's insistence on backing its Syrian ally, President Bashar al-Assad, at all costs leading to serious tension with the US, Britain and France. Most Nato members cut their defence spending dramatically since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 but Russia has been bolstering its military capabilities, holding parades involving more than 100,000 troops...

NATO troops will be put on a higher state of alert because of increasing tensions with Vladimir Putin and Russia, the head of the military alliance has said. Commanders are also set to prepare a huge land force to terrify the Russians into not showing aggression. Sir Adam Thomson, Britain's outgoing permanent representative to Nato, has said the goal is to speed up the response time of up to 300,000 military personnel to about two months.

Biggest reinforcement of our collective defence" since the end of the Cold War says Nato. Nato is preparing for its "biggest reinforcement" of its collective defence since the end of the Cold War amid growing tensions with Russia. The alliance's secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, said that hundreds of thousands of troops will be put on a higher state of alert. Nato commanders are also preparing a substantial land force to deter growing Russian aggression. The Times said that although Stoltenberg did not provide exact figures, Sir Adam Thomson, the UK's outgoing permanent representative to Nato, said that he believed the target...

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Tuesday Ankara could launch a ground operation in Iraq to remove any threats to Turkey that may arise. "If there is a threat posed to Turkey, we are ready to use all our resources including a ground operation... to eliminate that threat," Cavusoglu said in an interview with Kanal 24 broadcaster. "It is our most natural right," he added. Cavusoglu referred to Turkey's ambitious offensive in Syria as an example of how Turkey took the threat to its security seriously. Since August 24, Ankara has supported opposition rebels to clear the Islamic State group...

US MILITARY chiefs have hoarded masses of military gear in underground Norwegian caves to ward off Vladimir Putin, it is claimed. The US has already announced the deployment of 300 Marines to the Scandinavian country that shares a 120-mile border with Russia. The US military is understood to be hoarding equipment in Norwegian storage centres in the event war breaks out with Russia. The method is similar to the ones used by Nato powers during the Cold War. It comes amid deteriorating relations between Moscow and the US over the former's role supporting Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in the country's...

Dani Rodrik has just returned from Turkey, shunned while defending his father-in-law, the main defendant in the military coup plot case. The Harvard professor explains his take. IN DECEMBER I traveled to Turkey with my wife and young son, as we do every year during winter break. This time, though, we had more than visiting family and friends in mind. We were on a mission to demonstrate that what many have called the trial of the century in Turkey is in fact a sham built on fabricated evidence. Nearly two hundred Turkish military officers stand accused of having plotted a...

Speaking at the annual Association of the US Army conference, the commander of the US Army Europe Ben Hodges revealed some of his concerns regarding the current state of NATO armies. Amid growing escalation of the US-Russia tensions over Syria, cyberattacks and whatnot, fears of all-out war can be heard more and more often. In this light, some of the issues Ben Hodges pointed out sound anecdotal. For example, one of the minor, but nevertheless troubling issues are… refueling nozzles. Who could have thought that armies of the US and Germany use incompatible refueling systems? Thus, if some German brigade...

Putin’s Activation of ‘Iskander-M’ Ballistic Missile Is a Message to Obama http://observer.com/2016/10/putins-activation-of-iskander-m-ballistic-missile-is-a-message-to-obama/ Putin’s Activation of ‘Iskander-M’ Ballistic Missile Is a Message to Obama The KGB officer in the Kremlin seeks one last, grand strategic humiliation for our president before he leaves office By John R. Schindler • 10/07/16 11:00am Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Prince Albert II of Monaco (not pictured) at the Kremlin in Moscow on October 6, 2016. / AFP / POOL AND AFP / YURI KADOBNOV Russian President Vladimir Putin. Yuri Kadobnov/AFP/Getty Images It’s long been obvious that Vladimir Putin and his inner circle view Barack...

While in command, the top U.S. general in Europe said President Obama looked at NATO as a warmonger “worry” and “threat” rather than an alliance trying to keep the peace, retired Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, who retired in May, wrote a 2014 series of emails to a think tank official in Washington. The four-star general bemoaned what it was like trying to work with the White House at a time when Vladimir Putin’s troops had invaded Ukraine and was trying to rattle other former Soviet Union puppet states. The emails were acquired by DCLeaks, a new site which earlier...

Eastern EU countries on Friday pushed for the bloc to create a joint army as they met with Germany for talks on sketching Europe’s post-Brexit future. “We must prioritize security, and let’s start by building a common European army,” Hungary’s rightwing prime minister, Viktor Orban, said at talks with Czech, German, Polish and Slovak leaders. […] Leftist Czech Premier Bohuslav Sobotka, for his part, said that “we should also begin a discussion about creating a common European army.” […] In an early response to Britain’s shock vote to exit the EU, Poland’s powerful rightwing leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski called for EU...

Over the past month, ever since the "failed" Turkish coup, there has been a dramatic, and surprising, deterioration in the of Turkey with various European states, most notably Austria and Germany, as well as with the US, and NATO in general. This was confirmed once again earlier today when Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu lashed out at NATO, in an interview with Russian Sputnik, saying the alliance is not fully cooperating with Ankara. More importantly, he hinted that Turkey would consider military cooperation with Russia. In the interview, Cavusoglu said that Ankara has become alarmed at the lack of willingness...

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has lashed out at NATO, saying the alliance is not fully cooperating with Ankara. In an interview with Sputnik, he hinted that Turkey would consider military cooperation with Russia. Cavusoglu says that Ankara has become alarmed at the lack of willingness shown by NATO to cooperate with Turkey, which is a member of the alliance. "It seems to us that NATO members behave in an evasive fashion on issues such as the exchange of technology and joint investments. Turkey intends to develop its own defense industry and strengthen its defense system,” he said in an...

EXCLUSIVE/ Two independent sources told EurActiv.com that the US has started transferring nuclear weapons stationed in Turkey to Romania, against the background of worsening relations between Washington and Ankara . According to one of the sources, the transfer has been very challenging in technical and political terms. “It’s not easy to move 20+ nukes,” said the source, on conditions of anonymity. According to a recent report by the Simson Center, since the Cold War, some 50 US tactical nuclear weapons have been stationed at Turkey’s Incirlik air base, approximately 100 kilometres from the Syrian border. During the failed coup in...

Turkish authorities have been hard-pressed to find room for the 35,000 people that have been detained since the coup attempt last month that killed more than 270 people. Currently 23,400 people are in custody in connection to coup allegations, a Turkish official said Wednesday. ... Human rights groups and opposition politicians have voiced concerns over the wave of detentions immediately after the coup attempt. Soldiers and officers sympathetic to it were rounded up and detained, handcuffed in their underwear in sports halls and stadiums. ... In the letter, the parliamentarians said they had asked that a delegation be set up...

Daniel Kawczynski, Member of Foreign Affairs Select Committee and Chairman of the All Party Group for Poland, is the latest high profile Member of Parliament to call for a change in the relationship between NATO and Russia, specifically asking for a reversal of the military build-up on the Russian and NATO borders and a de-escalation of the recent tensions. Mr. Kawczynski, writing in a letter to the Telegraph newspaper, said whilst acknowledging that many in the London political circles “are suspicious of Russian motives and intentions” and see Russia as “causing concern for European security particularly over her actions in...

Vice President Joe Biden will travel to Turkey later this month to smooth over the administration’s relationship with the NATO ally. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime survived a coup attempt last month and has since been cracking down on journalists, academics and the military in an effort to suppress what it sees as vestiges of the coup movement. The White House said in a release that Biden's stop in Ankara will be part of a three-day trip that also includes visits to Latvia and Sweden.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has stated his organization believes they are in possession of emails which prove Hillary Clinton was aware of the transfer of weapons from Libya, through Turkey, into Syria. If Assange is accurate, the prior congressional testimony of Clinton becomes another example of her deception and fraud. Rand Paul discusses at the end of this interview segment To understand the scope of the potential behind the WikiLeaks Assange information, it’s critical to understand the facts in/around Libya and Syria in 2011, 2012 through today. The specifics are outlined in the updated Benghazi Brief. The “Benghazi Brief” remains...

Turkey said Friday it has received “positive signals” from the United States over its requests to extradite Pennsylvania-based preacher Fethullah Gulen whom Ankara accuses of ordering last month’s attempted coup.....

On Feb. 14, 1979, less than one month after the shah of Iran’s exile, the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was overrun by Iranian militants. Within hours, it was returned to U.S. hands. Now on notice that our diplomats were stationed on a vulnerable outpost in a sea of anti-Americanism, the Carter administration considered, but rejected, closing the embassy. In October, President Carter permitted the shah – despised by Iranians and the regime that replaced his – to enter the United States. Days later, Iranians climbed the embassy gates again, took the Americans there hostage and demanded the shah’s return, beginning...

NATO SUMMIT In Warsaw, a regular NATO summit, which many predicted to become "historic" and one that will bring new opportunities for security. So is justified leaders meeting of NATO hopes pinned upon it, and how the world can change the decisions they have taken? It is expected that the Summit did not live romantic dreams, especially those that had hoped that the Alliance now want to see Ukraine. But skeptics said that the weakness of the alliance, the growing contradictions among its members, including on the issue of NATO's relationship with Russia, were not prophets. Based on the analysis...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared to give the United States an ultimatum, demanding the extradition of a cleric he believes is behind the failed July 15 coup attempt. Erdogan said the US would eventually have to choose between its relationship with Turkey and Fethullah Gulen, a former Erdogan ally who has been in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported Wednesday.

For the first time, elite U.S. Special Operations troops are directly helping fighters combat against ISIS in Libya with on-site support, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday, citing U.S. and Libyan officials. A small group of U.S. Special Operations forces are operating together with UK troops in Sirte, a city on the Libyan coast and ISIS’ de facto capital in North Africa. The role of the U.S. troops is limited to backing forces loyal to Libya’s unity Government of National Accord (GNA), The Post noted, quoting U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. Last week, the U.S. launched precision...

"Isolationists must not prevail in this new debate over foreign policy," warns Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. "The consequences of a lasting American retreat from the world would be dire." To make his case against the "Isolationist Temptation," Haass creates a caricature, a cartoon, of America First patriots, then thunders that we cannot become "a giant gated community." Understandably, Haass is upset. For the CFR has lost the country. Why? It colluded in the blunders that have bled and near bankrupted America and that cost this country its unrivaled global preeminence at the end of the...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has told a vast rally in Istanbul that he would approve the return of the death penalty if it was backed by parliament and the public. He was speaking to at least a crowd of at least a million who had gathered in Turkey's biggest city. The rally followed last month's failed military coup. Mr Erdogan also said the state would be cleansed of all supporters of the US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen. The cleric is blamed by the Turkish government for the attempted uprising. He denies any involvement. Religious figures and leaders of two of...

Gökhan Acikkoglu was, until very recently, a teacher in Turkey. Nobody expected that he would die eight days after a small part of the Turkish army staged a (failed) coup. Yet, that's exactly what happened. After the failed coup Gökhan was arrested by the authorities. Of course, he didn't have anything to do with the coup. After the all, the power grab was carried out by members of the military. Gökhan was sitting at home when it all happened and was just hoping he would be able to continue to teach his students the knowledge they need to succeed in...

Marine Gen. John Allen, a 1976 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, served this country admirably for more than 36 years. Now he has announced he wants to retire. The 59 year-old former top officer in Afghanistan cited his wife's "chronic" illness and said he wants to devote more time to helping his beloved Kathy cope with serious health problems, including an undisclosed "auto-immune disorder." We join the vast majority of Americans who pray the general's wife will get better, and thank him for his service to this country. But one would have to be pathetically naive not to realize...

Greg Nash Visiting Italy this week, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is emphasizing the importance of maintaining close ties with NATO allies –– an unveiled, if indirect, shot at Donald Trump's vow to make such support conditional. After meeting Monday with Italian President Sergio Mattarella and other top officials, Pelosi said the talks focused on "counterterrorism, cyber security and other critical national security topics." She referred to Italy as "our close friend in NATO" and praised Italy's participation in the allied group as vital for promoting global security. “In our meeting with President Mattarella, we thanked him for...

Working with dubious sourcing, a group close to NATO's chief military commander Philip Breedlove sought to secure weapons deliveries for Ukraine, a trove of newly released emails revealed. The efforts served to intensify the conflict between the West and Russia. Most of the 1,096 hacked emails date back to the dramatic 12 months of the Ukraine crisis after Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014. Thousands died in the skirmishes between Kiev's troops and Moscow-aligned separatists. More than 2 million civilians fled eastern Ukraine. Breedlove sought counsel from some very prominent people, his emails show. Among them were Wesley Clark, Breedlove's...

Last Saturday, during lunch with Scott Richert and Aaron Wolf at Rockford’s Prairie Street Brewhouse, I expressed suspicion that the coup in Turkey—just over 24 hours old at that time, and in the final stages of collapse—was Erdogan’s Reichstag fire: a stage-managed event, carried out by clueless stooges, meant to enhance the power of the manipulative autocrat who was its ostensible target.

Some 7,000 armed police with heavy vehicles have surrounded and blocked the Incirlik air base in Adana used by NATO forces, already restricted in the aftermath of a failed coup. Unconfirmed reports say troops were sent to deal with a new coup attempt. Hurriyet reported earlier that Adana police had been tipped off about a new coup attempt, and forces were immediately alerted. The entrance to the base was closed off. Security forces armed with rifles and armored TOMA vehicles used by Turkish riot police could be seen at the site in photos taken by witnesses....